Anton Hiller (1893 Munich - 1985 ibid.) Creeping Bengal tiger Bronze, dark patina. Signed; Hiller's animal sculpture, reduced to the essentials and influenced by Fritz Behn. Hiller received a thorough artistic and sculptural education: following an apprenticeship as a wood sculptor, he studied at the Munich Academy under Hermann Hahn from 1913 to 1923 (interrupted by the First World War); Hiller also trained in the studios of Fritz Behn, Wilhelm Nida-Rümelin, Josef Flossmann and Karl Killer. Hiller became a member of the "Münchener Secession", worked as a freelancer from 1923, and in 1926 a study visit took him to Paris. Shortly afterwards, in 1928, an article about Hiller appeared in the magazine "Der Kunstwart" (p. 278), in which he was praised as "one of the most promising younger sculptors" with a "sure feeling for the material". During the National Socialist era, Hiller took part in the First State Art Exhibition in Munich in 1933, and in 1938, 1940 and 1941 he was represented with a total of five works at the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich. From 1946 to 1961, he taught as a professor of sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Alongside Toni Stadler and Heinrich Kirchner, Hiller was the most important representative of the Munich school of sculpture in the third quarter of the 20th century; from 1952 to 1960, Hiller was a member of the board of the Deutscher Künstlerbund. In 1961, Hiller was made an honorary member of the Munich Academy, and in 1962 he was a guest of honour at the German Academy of the Villa Massimo in Rome. In 1973, a major retrospective was organised at the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich. 27 cm x 59 cm x 11.8 cm. Dark patinated bronze. Signed.